If Colorado voters pass a first-in-the-nation statewide universal health care proposal this year, a typical elderly couple on Social Security and Medicare would save nearly $2,000 per year, according to the proponents’ campaign.

Or they would end up paying nearly $1,800 extra per year, a separate analysis finds.

Or perhaps they might pay more than that, opponents of the measure warn.

When it comes to Amendment 69, the universal health care measure known as ColoradoCare, the simplest question — How much would I pay? — is fraught with disagreement. That’s because many of the decisions that would determine exactly what ColoradoCare would look like, what it would cover and even how much it would ultimately cost individuals wouldn’t be made until after it is passed — including some decisions that would be made by people not in Colorado.

Opponents of ColoradoCare see this as a fatal flaw.

“It’s impossible to know what you’re going to get for what you’re paying,” said Cody Belzley, a health care consultant who is the policy director for the anti-Amendment 69 campaign Coloradans for Coloradans.

Supporters of ColoradoCare, though, say opponents overhype the uncertainty to encourage fear of the unknown.

“There are things about this plan that people have a hard time wrapping their heads around because we are so used to a different system,” said Owen Perkins, the spokesman for the pro-Amendment 69 campaign ColoradoCareYES.

ColoradoCare would largely replace private health insurance in Colorado with a taxpayer-funded system to cover every person in the state. A 10 percent payroll tax — people with bosses would pay a third of the tax and their employers would pick up the rest; people who are self-employed would pay the full 10 percent — would generate billions of dollars needed to pay for the system. A 21-member board that would be elected by ColoradoCare beneficiaries would oversee the system.

“Many questions about the details of ColoradoCare’s operations can only be answered by saying, ‘It’s up to the board,’ ” the independent Colorado Health Institute wrote in a report looking at ColoradoCare’s governance structure.

The Denver Post sought to cut through the uncertainty by calculating how much hypothetical people in various, typical situations — a family of four, a retired couple, a single person, and so forth — pay now and how much they would pay under ColoradoCare. Analysts at the Colorado Health Institute provided figures for what people in the typical situations pay for health care now, on average. The institute has produced a big-picture financial analysis of the measure that ColoradoCare supporters dispute, but the ColoradoCareYES campaign largely did not contest the figures on current health care costs for this story.

There was one area where the Colorado Heath Institute and the ColoradoCareYES campaign agreed: Low-income people currently on Medicaid would continue to pay nothing for health care coverage if ColoradoCare passes.

But, in every other scenario, the Colorado Health Institute and the ColoradoCareYES campaign diverged — in some cases widely — on their calculations for what ColoradoCare would cost:

A family of four with about $88,000 a year in taxable household income currently on employer-based insurance. The Colorado Health Institute says the family would save $743 dollars a year. The ColoradoCareYES campaign says the family would save $2,459.

A senior couple with about $66,000 a year in Social Security income. The Colorado Health Institute says the couple would pay $1,782 more per year. The ColoradoCareYES campaign says the couple would save $1,955.

A self-employed person who makes about $32,000 a year and buys private health insurance on the state’s Obamacare exchange. The Colorado Health Institute says the person would spend $1,237 more. The ColoradoCareYES campaign says the person would save $142.

A young couple making around $65,000 a year but doesn’t have health insurance. The Colorado Health Institute says the couple would pay $78 more, even when taking into account the current tax penalty for not having insurance. The ColoradoCareYES campaign says the couple would save $312.

The difference mostly comes down to a single question: How much of their health care costs would patients be asked to shoulder in addition to the ColoradoCare tax?

Amendment 69 says ColoradoCare could not charge deductibles — the fixed sums that insurance companies require patients to pay first and in addition to premiums before benefits kick in. But ColoradoCare could charge copays, except for on certain yet-to-be-designated primary and preventative services. And the amendment doesn’t specify any limit for how much those could be.

As a result, the Colorado Health Institute estimates that patients would be asked to pay 14 percent of health care costs out-of-pocket. Any less would put ColoradoCare into massive debt from the beginning, the institute argues.

ColoradoCareYES says copays would be closer to 4 percent and that the institute isn’t properly factoring in cost savings from a single-payer system.

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The board that governs ColoradoCare would ultimately set the amount. And that’s not the only disagreement that would have to be settled by the board.

Skeptics say people on Medicare would have to continue paying for certain Medicare services even while paying the ColoradoCare tax. Supporters of the amendment, though, say they envision ColoradoCare applying to become a Medicare Advantage plan, eliminating the double payment. But the to-be-elected board would have to make that application and federal officials would have to approve it.

Federal officials would also have to approve a waiver that maintains Medicaid funding to the state in order to keep ColoradoCare in the black.

“The proponents of ColoradoCare are really asking the voters to take a big risk on an untested model and say, ‘Trust us,’ ” Belzley said.

But Perkins — pointing to steep increases in costs for plans on Obamacare exchanges nationwide — said the current system carries plenty of uncertainty about the future, as well.

“It’s so much more accountable — the (ColoradoCare) board — than any insurance board that I’m aware of,” he said.

More in Election

U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter is being pressured to stay in his long-held congressional seat a month after the Democrat dropped out of the race for Colorado governor and announced he would not run for reelection to the U.S. House next year, according to a sources.

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner will hold three in-person town halls next week after months of liberal activists chastising him for not doing so and on the heels of an at-times unruly meeting with constituents last week in Durango, where he was berated for his votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act.